[mikeash]

"In Massachusetts, 57 developmentally disabled children were fed radioactive oatmeal in an experiment sponsored by MIT and the Quaker Oats Company."

What the fuck. The bit about Quaker is really nuts.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files for anyone who doesn't feel like googling it.

[curtis]

The oatmeal had radioactive tracers in it. This is described in more detail at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Fernald_Developmental....

Everybody seems to agree that the whole experiment was unethical, but it seems unlikely that that the radiation harmed any of the subjects.

[MichaelSalib]

If everyone thought it was harmless, why wasn't it conducted on college students, the usual specimen of choice for harmless experiments? Was it just a coincidence that the researchers decided to experiment on the most powerless and defenseless subjects they could find?

[akiselev]

This is MIT, not Mengele's Auschwitz. Radioactive tracers are injected into the blood streams of millions of people every year for PET and CT scans, of all ages, which is far more harmful than radioactive tracers in food.

[PavlovsCat]

This is MIT, not Mengele's Auschwitz.

That doesn't answer the question at all. It kinda just assumes that the question isn't really interesting because of course MIT isn't like Auschwitz, even in the instance where it kinda is.

[akiselev]

For it to be Mengele's Auschwitz they'd need to perform horribly unethical experiments AND not give a rat's ass about consent.

The latter happened here, not the former.

[PavlovsCat]

The lack of consent, or the lack of even the ability to say no, is kind of what makes it unethical.

And hey, it's not like anyone even brought that up other than in defense of MIT, to dismiss the question "why would they do X and not Y".

[MichaelSalib]

Right, it was MIT, so why not use the faculty lounge breakfast cereal? Or the student center's? I mean, it was totally absolutely harmless, right?

[akiselev]

You do know how scientific studies are run, right? I can't speak to why they chose to do the tests on developmentally disabled children (possibly wanted to test effects of radiation on growing metabolism or something, without risk of stunting the development of normal children, which is still unethical) but all of your suggestions sound like the perfect storm of uncontrollable factors and useless data.

[MichaelSalib]

As an MIT alum who (1) has run experiments, (2) has had experiments performed on me by MIT researchers and (3) has actually studied this particular case in a Scientific Ethics class at MIT, I know a lot of things. Plus my brother is developmentally disabled.

The "scientists" in question didn't think anyone would consent so they chose to experiment on people without seeking consent. They knew that normal adults would ask too many questions so they used cognitively impaired children. They did this because they didn't think of developmentally disabled people as fully human.

Look, MIT has already decided that this was a horribly unethical thing to do. Its professors practically scream that in classes. And it paid off the victims with $2million. MIT thinks this is unethical. So why are you disagreeing?

[raverbashing]

Funny, I remember some (worse) experiments done with Marines positioned near atomic bomb detonations

The glowing oatmeal seems mild

[Daniel_Newby]

Probably they wanted subjects who would uncomplainingly eat a boring experimental diet.

And suggesting that MIT students be used for radioactivity experiments is silly: they would eat their own radioactive stuff to screw with the scientists.

[mikeash]

Thanks. While the experiment still seems rather egregious, that is not quite as bad, and it's important to know the details.

Do you happen to know if anything useful was learned from the experiment?

[mseebach]

"In none of these cases were the subjects informed about the nature of the procedures, and thus could not have provided informed consent."

This - and not the plutonium - is the bad part. Your comment is completely irrelevant to argument the parent makes.

[foobarbazqux]

Of course it's relevant, he was elaborating on the experiments that OP was alluding to and expressing his shock. They aren't having a debate.

[mikeash]

Excuse me?

I'm pretty sure that the "developmentally disabled children" bit precludes informed consent, and I don't see how discussing a particularly egregious case of what was presented could possibly be "completely irrelevant".

[anonymfus]

>I'm pretty sure that the "developmentally disabled children" bit precludes informed consent

Your comment reminds me old joke: "Doctor, you forgot about anaesthesia before surgical operation!" — "Don't worry, patient is mute.".

There are many kinds of development disabilities. It was not ever said anything about mental disabilities.

[MichaelSalib]

I think you are very confused. I've spent a lot of time with developmentally disabled people and I've yet to see one that didn't have a substantial cognitive impairment. Moreover, children in general cannot consent.

[mikeash]

The third word I quoted is also important.

[joezydeco]

Christ, I used to live a block from Quaker's R&D facility in the Chicago suburbs. They never mentioned anything about radioactive research there. I bet there's all kinds of skeletons buried in the backyard. Oh wait, now there's a Gatorade workout field on top of it...

[kunai]

Radioactive tracers, not radioactive material. The media loves to hype this up.

Essentially, what you get injected in you whenever you go for a CT scan, except this was a far, far lower dose.

Stupid sensationalism.

[peterpathname]

radioactive tracers do constitute radioactive material. Stupd semantics. Ypu can choose to have a CT scan, and good for you: the scandal here is that experiments were performed without the children or their parents having an opportunity to give informed consent.

[kunai]

The amount of radiation in those tracers was no more than 0.15µSv. That's five times less than what you get by eating six bananas a day.

And I highly doubt that there was no consent beforehand. Perhaps there was excessive legalese or the parents were not notified of the tracers, but that doesn't constitute the assumption that no consent was given.

[raverbashing]

Yes, do you know what else constitutes a radioactive material?

A Banana

One of the highest amount of radioactivity in natural products.